Under the Ether
by Anna Lane
Summary: Kylo and Rey meet each other as children in a force-bond memory. 2 part.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Inspired by a beautiful piece of Reylo art (see cover). I couldn't find the artist's name, but I will keep looking. If there are any lore mistakes or spelling/editing mistakes, let me know!**

* * *

"I didn't see him last night."

The look of hope on the general's face melted away into the lines that distinguished her age, experience, and pain.

"Maybe tomorrow." Leia said lightly.

Rey didn't believe that tone at all. And not for the first time, she wished she'd never told Leia that her son sometimes visited her in force visions.

The first time she told Leia about Ben, the older woman had been worried about Rey. "Are you hurt? Is he trying to poison your mind like Snoke poisoned his? There's always two."

"No, it wasn't like that. He wasn't. We just talked."

And Rey could have hit herself. Because on that night, Leia's hope renewed. It was good for the morale of the resistance, but Rey could see the toll it took on the mother.

Still, the resistance needed every angle it had. Since going on the run, they'd suffered even more loss. Leia had mentioned that soon they would all have to go their separate ways. Too many targets in one place could mean the end of the resistance.

Rey was already packed, not that she had much to take. Not that she wanted to go or leave Finn and Poe. Or the general. And where would she go? Luke had suggested the forest moon of Endor.

Leia spoke again. "As a boy he was quiet. Angry, too, but I didn't realize that until it was too late."

Her voice startled Rey out of her thoughts. She just looked at her sad face as the memories left the former princess temporarily unable to speak.

"At six, he already knew more about droids and piloting than Han and I combined. He was just a baby when the dark side targeted him. And where was the light?" Leia shouted. "Where was I?" She seemed close to tears for a moment. "I thought he was just like Luke. Thoughtful. I never knew Luke as a child, though. I never thought about _his _struggle with the dark. And I didn't think of Vader. Didn't remember that Vader was a child, too, once, before he became the monster."

Rey's mouth dropped open. She hadn't heard Leia speak this much about anything, really. But she listened, because she needed information about Kylo. Whether it was to turn him or kill him, she needed to know him. So, she kept quiet and Leia continued.

"Vader killed my whole planet. My family…" her eyes watered and she seemed surprised, as if she hadn't known the pain was still there. "Some nights, I'm grateful it was Luke who faced him. I – I'm still so angry, Rey. I would have given in to the dark. It's why I never wanted to train like Luke."

For a moment, white-hot anger flashed in the woman's eyes and Rey believed she would have been the most terrifying one of all. There was something Rey could recognize in that look. She was grateful the general wasn't her enemy.

"I thought Ben was different. He was always helping. Even when I should have shielded him. One night after an attempt on my life, he cleaned out my blaster wounds. Some days I think I wouldn't have made it through that night without him. In those days, he was my strength…

"When Luke told me he had almost killed another student in practice, I was shocked. It was so far from how I knew him to be. I should have sent him away, like my mother sent me away. But I wasn't strong enough to make that decision. After so many years apart, I wanted our family to be together, finally…"

Rey couldn't take the regret in her voice. She grabbed the woman's shoulders, probably violating protocol, and shook her harder than she should have. "You did the right thing. No child should – " She choked – "should have to wonder about their parents."

Leia cupped Rey's face. "You will find the truth about your parents one day, Rey."

Rey looked away. She was bringing to lose faith. Did blood even mean anything? She saw the pain that had come to the Solo and Skywalker 'family.'

"I came to say I'm leaving." Rey felt a stab of guilt at the look of shocked pain on the old woman's face - and to say it after Leia told her so much.

But then the pain was gone, replaced with practicality and diplomacy. "Of course, Rey. It's past time we went our separate ways. Take everything you need."

Rey nodded, but hesitated. Before she could second-guess herself, she pulled Leia in for a hug.

The woman gripped her back with a surprising strength and Rey had to fight the voice that whispered she would be losing her family by leaving, too.

Leia kept her close. "Wait, I wanted to ask you…Luke told me what happened with Vader. How – not every part of him was lost. I couldn't have done it, but Luke found the good in him. I told you about Ben as he was because…even if you can't save the man, save my son. My little boy."

Rey was quiet. That was Leia's secret hope? That some part of Ben's _spirit_ might survive Kylo's death?

She suddenly felt weighed down by her request. How could the two people closest to Ben have given up hope for his future? _His dad didn't and look where he is now._

Rey gave the general a quick nod. "I will."

* * *

She was speeding away on the Millennium Falcon when her surroundings shifted. She left Chewy in the cockpit so she could get some rest when she was hit by a strange wave of dizziness. Like falling while standing still.

She regained her balance while her eyes focused on a new scene. It hadn't happened like this before. She searched for his looming presence but didn't feel anything. She was in an open-spaced apartment overlooking a bright and bustling city. Despite the lights outside, the apartment was mostly dark. Rey's eyes fell on a small figure on the couch.

His skin was perfect, unmarred by battle, with only a few marks from birth on his face. But his eyes – his eyes always gave him away. They were no less haunted than usual. He was staring out the window where she had been looking. He was clutching a book. She could hear guards speaking indistinctly outside the door. Bloody bandages littered the floor next to the couch. Rey knew this night…Leia had just told her about it. _This is a memory._ The force hadn't done this before. She continued to observe him, wondering why the force had decided to show her this vision.

His eyes slowly drifted to hers and her mouth fell open when she realized he could see her. His gaze unnerved her, made her more uncomfortable than even the adult Kylo could manage. "If you're here to kill my mother, you won't get far." The book shifted to reveal a blaster he'd been concealing. It was pointed right at her chest. "I'm not some two-bit assassin. I don't miss."

Rey didn't doubt it. She would have smiled at the Han in his voice if she weren't still reeling. "I'm not here to hurt anyone."

He seemed to take measure of her before nodding.

_Does he have to look at me like that?_

He slipped off the couch and began to gather up the bloody clothes and bandages to throw them in a nearby wastebasket.

Rey made a move to help and in less than a blink of the eye, the blaster was trained on her. It had been on the couch and although he was quick when he made the grab for it, Rey had still seen the blaster fly through the last few inches to his hand. He had used the force.

Rey held up her hands. It was smart of him to be weary. "You're gifted." She slowly began to help him.

His face didn't change, but the gun hid itself. "No one else thinks so."

"I'm sure that's not true." She said immediately and without thought.  
"My parents don't like it. The guards are afraid."

"It can be dangerous," Rey agreed slowly. "but it doesn't have to be a bad thing." She reached out and floated the last of the sodden rags to the bin.

His eyes widened and his stare grew from weary to hungry.

_Oh. That look is much worse._ She didn't like the way her outreached hand was shaking, so she quickly dropped it.

It was too swift a movement and it made the boy flinch. She sat on the couch in a calmer manner.

He paused before sitting at the opposite end, the same place she saw him when she first arrived in the memory.

"They want to send me away because of it."

Rey couldn't have guessed why he decided to tell her that. There must be something on her face that both the boy and his mother would speak to her like this.

"You need a teacher." Why Rey found herself repeating those words, she couldn't say.

"I need to protect her," he said stubbornly. He looked like he hadn't slept. Rey wondered if he could.

"The guards–"

"Didn't do anything tonight!" He said in a loud flash of anger.

Ah, so there was his mother in him, after all. "The general isn't dead, though is she?" Rey asked.

"General?"

"Princess, I mean."

He seemed bemused. "Senator, actually."

"Right." Rey nervously patted her leg. "Perhaps she believes you will be safer, if you go."

"I would be," he acknowledged. "Anyone would. This place, the other senators – you can't trust anyone here." There was that haunted look again. "Even my mother's allies – she met with them tonight and look what happened!" He was on his feet, rage flaring. He slammed his book into a vase, shattering it. She sent a quiet mental command for the soldiers to ignore it. She wasn't sure if they'd received it, if they were used to Ben's fits, or if they simply were that useless.

Rey rose, too. "Ky – Ben," she tried to calm his fury. His hand twitched and Rey wasn't sure if she saw the blaster move or if she simply felt the ripple through the force. It made her angrier than she'd meant to become.

"You will sit down and if you so much think of that blaster one more time I will toss you so far into the air for so long that your feet long for the ground!" _So help her she was threatening a child!_

He didn't seem upset anymore, though. He sat back on the couch. "We can do that?" He got that interested gleam in his eyes again.

_We. _

"_I_ can. I could kick your –" Rey stopped herself. She was _not_ going to fight him. What was it about him that was so infuriating, even at 8 years old? "I don't want a fight," she just finished instead. _Kriff, I do not want to hurt you._

"Why are you here, then?" He finally asked.

She sat down to match him. _Is that really the only reason you think people come to see you, Ben? To hurt you?_ Rey didn't know the answer to his question. "I'm here to help you sleep."

"How?" He seemed skeptical.

"I'll watch over you." She promised.

His eyes darted to his mother's room. "Both of you." He was still full of so much doubt. "Reach out, use the force, feel my intentions," she instructed him. "You'll see."

He closed his eyes.

"Concentrate." She reminded him.

She could see the moment he succeeded. He out the smallest breath and some of the relentless tension left his features. "Who are you?" He said in wonder.

Without warning, a darkness clouded the room. He shouted in fear the exact moment they both felt it. A woman, assassin by the looks of her, crashed through the glass and had her weapons trained on them both. The stranger's red eyes flickered towards the bedroom.

Ben was shaking and his breath was uneven with fear and anger. Before he could reach for his blaster, Rey had leveled it at the woman using the force. Blast after blast caught the startled woman in the chest, long after the initial spurt of green blood splashed from her chest. Rey kept firing it, fury making her lose reason. The Durosi assassin went crashing backward through the window. Rey fired it out at the open glass a few more times before a hand on her wrist broke through her anger.

The look on her face made him cringe away, but it cooled her wits. They might need the blaster again. It was no use wasting its energy on someone who would now be clearly dead.

The guards made no attempt to enter the room, despite the commotion. She couldn't even hear them anymore. Paid off or dead. Leia hadn't mentioned a second attack. Had Ben even told her? "She's gone." Rey said unnecessarily.

He seemed in awe of her. He hadn't even had time to move from his spot on the couch when the woman came through. And Rey had been so _angry_…she hadn't felt that angry in a long time. "You killed her." He said.

Rey tensed.

He finally sighed. "I'm glad. But there are always more."

"Not tonight," she promised. "Rest now," she practically begged. "I am here."

He started to lose his rigid hold on his body. His eyes closed. "Who are you really?" He asked.

"I'm no one."

Without opening his eyes, he asked, "Not to me."

_What a strange echo of a conversation._

"Are you an angel?" he asked.

He didn't wait for a response before half-collapsing. He crawled to her and rested his head on her lap. He'd been exhausted. Rey's fingers only paused a moment before she put her hand on his head to smooth his soft hair. She kept her senses open for any threat.


	2. Chapter 2

Kylo suddenly found himself in the desert, which was…annoying. There was a moment like his ship had started falling through the sky and then…_this._ He stayed away from deserts. He didn't like the sand. It got in his boots, between his shoulder blades, the coarse grains even scraped the skin of his face inside the mask.

He looked around for _her_ but all he found were a group of children playing not far off. It had been so long since the force last connected them. This time it was different.

He heard a quick, high scream. Not playing. He couldn't say why he ran towards it. Weakness, compassion. Boredom, curiosity.

There four children. Three larger boys were pulling at the little one's clothes and hair, ripping a bundle of parts from its arm. With a start, he realized it was a girl. Not just any girl.

He ran quicker.

They kicked and punched at her until she fell hard into the sand. He saw one child raise its boot and with a cry of rage, Kylo lifted his hand to send them all flying from her huddled body. They screamed and took off, but not without her things.

She peeked up at him from behind her arms but stayed in the fetal position. She seemed terrified he would continue where they left off. What little skin was showing of her face and arms were littered with bruises, some days old, some just beginning. _How many times had they done this?_

He ignited his lightsaber and began to pursue them. he would rip them limb from limb and the first thing he'd do when the Empire lay claim over everything was obliterate every grain of sand on this miserable excuse of a world.

Kylo had only taken a step forward when a gentle tugging at his cape stopped him. He raised his arm with the blade and she fell back in alarm. "Don't kill them!" she said.

And even though she was tiny and malnourished, it still managed to sound like the bossy, self-righteous scavenger he knew. His lip twitched in annoyance or amusement, he wasn't sure which.

"Why?" His voice came filtered through the mask.

Eyes round as saucers, she got on her tip toes to stare at him. What was she trying to figure out? "Why?" he prompted.

"I steal from them." she said.

"They just stole from _you_."

She looked around for a moment before she started to walk away, but not before she gave him a look of steel. "They took a few pieces of junk. Not even good junk. Plutt wont even take them, I bet. One of them has a tracker and – " She stopped, as if unsure whether or not she should tell him.

"And?"

She still seemed stubborn, but she decided to continue. "It'll end up in a pile at their place – with scraps that aren't useless."

"You're a thief." He should have known. Hadn't she taken his lightsaber like it was nothing?

She glared at him and his gut twisted uncomfortably. She couldn't have been past 7. But she was sharp, wasn't she? Rey had figured out a way to survive on this planet as young and small as she was. He'd always known she was a worthy opponent. "That's clever," Kylo struggled with what to say.

He was unprepared for the sight that met them when they took a sharp turn around a large sand dune. A small speeder, probably meant for a sand person, had been hidden among the rolling, shifting sand hills. It was just big enough for her.

Small Rey tried to start it and let out a huff of frustration when the engine didn't turn over.

She screamed so suddenly that it started Kylo. He thought the other children must be back. But no, she was smashing the side panel with her little fists and letting out growls of rage. "Argh!" she hopped down and kicked it for good measure.

"You won't get it started that way," he said.

She was still panting with rage when she turned to snarl at him. "It won't start at all. Not without hours of repair."

He should have been angry…but her anger seemed to sooth his away. That accent, when paired with the hint of a lisp in her child's voice, didn't feel so abrasive or threatening.

Her tiny hands began disassembling the engine. He looked over and saw she was right. He realized she was targeting the most valuable pieces of the engine to – she hobbled off, struggling to carry them all. He stared after her in amazement. She'd just scavenged her own kriffing cruiser!

He followed her. "Why not repair it?"

She gave him a stony look. She must have been born with that look. It looked right at home on her face, though her eyes seemed too large and she had more freckles than he'd ever seen. "And be out here at night? Happabores-brain."

Kylo, irritated at his own lack of a reply, grabbed the heaviest piece she was carrying with one hand.

She screeched like the little wretch she was, but he held her off with the other hand on her forehead. "Calm down, little scavenger. We'll travel faster if I carry this."

She stared at him. "I'm not going to Nima."

"Neither am I." He was strangely pleased to note that seemed to catch her off guard.

"Don't follow me!" She seemed on the verge of another fit.

Some part of it was fear, he could see that in the slight tremble. But mostly – she was so angry. This must have been not long after her parents left her. Her anger controlled her. It had helped her survive. Odd that she would turn from the darkness later. "You'd leave me alone in the desert to die?"

It was, perhaps, unfair of him to ask that. Her bottom lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them with her sleeve.

Kylo caught a glimpse of her first night in the desert alone. She'd run away from her master and had almost died.

Rey turned away from him and continued on at her slow child's pace. She hadn't invited him along or motioned him to follow, but he could tell his words had served their purpose. He was welcome to follow.

The walk was long. Kylo found himself zooming out, almost as if in a trance. The sun was setting in their eyes.

"Sometimes you see things," she said suddenly. "Don't be scared."

_Mirages. _He glanced at her and had another flash. She sees an ocean in her dreams, in the sands. He saw them before, of course, but this time they were clearer – but then they were gone. He didn't have time to dissect the images.

"I wish they hadn't taken my scarf."

Her scalp was becoming dark pink, the skin of her face was already a light red. He cursed and pulled off his cape. He spun her and put it on her shoulders. She seemed surprised. _No more surprised than I am, little Rey._ He used his lightsaber to cut the cloak to a reasonable length. She'd shrieked when she saw it again but seemed relieved for the relief against the setting sun.

Kylo didn't know what came over him. But he told himself they had a destiny to fulfill, after all.

It was nearly getting dark and she'd quickened her pace. She grabbed his hand and he pulled against her. But she held on for dear life and tugged him one step in her direction. "Sand pits," she gasped out between labored breaths.

Kylo swallowed. To his immediate left – an almost imperceptible change in the sand. He needed to pay more attention. He fought his admiration for the little girl. He knew the treachery of the pits.

She seemed more cheerful having seen him nearly fall. "That's why no one lives here. That's why I like it." She hadn't left go of his arm and was swaying it wildly back and forth as she showed him just where to step. She giggled when he stumbled once.

_Psychotic._ But still, he couldn't help a small smile beneath the mask. That Rey would have found her way through this maze – and made a game of it!

She was preparing to jump over a particularly large sinkhole when Kylo rolled his eyes and picked her up. His long legs hopped over it easily. She'd started with a small noise of dismay, but it ended in a giggle. "We have to hurry!" She said seriously. "I can't see them at night."

He tucked her easily under one arm and held the big machine part with the other. She called out directions and he did his best to run. "Left! Right! Jump! Sprint! Left!"

By the time he saw a silver dome rising out of the sand, his nerves were shot from nearly falling multiple times and he was out of breath from running with his burdens.

"There it is!" She cried out unnecessarily. She wiggled out of his arms with surprising grace and sprinted towards it. Kylo followed, doing his best to match her path.

She was unnaturally fast. She took a running leap and half-scrambled, half-scaled the dome of a fallen ship, some 20 feet off the sand. She was using the force. She probably didn't even know she was doing anything special.

He hauled himself up, feeling ridiculous. Only to find that the opening she'd disappeared into was miniature. He was surprised even _she_ had been able to wiggle through it. He peered down and a cheeky face ginned up at him.

She was missing a few teeth and she was still pink from the sun and the run. And he didn't know what to do with that smile. "The big door's back at the bottom," she said like he was an idiot.

_I am going to strangle her._ That's what he would do. He slid down the dome and felt around its base before finally finding a folding panel that just barely allowed him to squeeze through.

She was set up in one of the smaller nooks in the downed ship. Her belongings, from what he could see, consisted of a small wooden box, a threadbare blanket, and a little pan.

She was cooking something green in the former. It didn't take long and it really didn't look appetizing. Nonetheless, she broke it in half and ate one half like she was starving. _Because she is starving_, he thought with anger. _This is why the galaxy needs the Empire._

She held out the other to him. Kylo hesitated before removing his mask. She seemed surprised, but she brushed that off to stare at him. "Knew you weren't a droid."

He leaned against the far wall in the small space. It was a relief to feel air on his face, such that the stale air in the half-submerged ship was, but he didn't enjoy being scrutinized. "You keep it," he said of the strange bread-patty.

Her jaw clenched – with guilt? – but she ate it ravenously, just like the first piece.

It didn't take long for her to crawl under her blanket. She used her arm for a pillow and pulled the partial cloak that once belonged to him on top of the blanket.

She still stared at him with big eyes.

He grew more uncomfortable. "Not much of a conversationalist," he muttered.

"Talk to barter," she said after a few more moments of silence. "Listen to hear where to find ship parts. No one's around to just…talk. I'm alone."

"You're not alone." He swallowed. _At least not tonight._ "Get some sleep."

It took a few minutes. Her eyes were trained on him, but began closing of their own accord. He closed his eyes, too, so he wouldn't have to meet hers any longer.

"Are you my father?" She asked, half-asleep.

His eyes snapped open. "No. If I was, I wouldn't have left you." The words seemed to hurt getting out.

She gave a tiny nod.

She stared at him until her eyes grew sleepy again. "I like your scar."

_I like it too._ His mouth pulled into a sarcastic twist and he was about to speak when he realized she was already asleep. He shut up.

* * *

Rey came to with the lights from the window to the city still mapped in her brain. She drew a steadying breath. "Was it a dream?" A low, soft voice asked. Kylo was on the other side of her room, looking just as shaken as her. This was more what she expected from their force-bond. Kylo looked even more withdrawn than usual, but she caught a glimpse of his mind and saw herself as a child.

"A memory, I think," she answered quietly. "You weren't there before, but somehow when I think about that night, I see you."

"You were there the night my mother –"

He felt vulnerable. She felt it, too. It was too much to be enemies in this moment.

"What would you have done – what _did_ you do, when I wasn't there?" he asked.

She remembered the older scavenger boys. They'd once seemed so important, but now they were faded in her mind. Like a holo out of focus. "I ran," she said. "And you?"

"What I had to," he said, as if it pained him. "I used to have nightmares about her eyes." He looked at her with a wonder that remarkably resembled the boy he had been. "I don't remember them anymore."

"I –" But Rey didn't know what to say.

"They never caught who sent her."

Rey knew how that must have added to his inability to sleep. She looked at him and saw the boy. "Kylo, Ben, whatever you want to call yourself – it doesn't matter. We will find ourselves on the same side. I know it. And you will have someone to watch over you, protect you. The way your parents should have. The way Luke should have."

He looked up and she wondered if she looked as broken as he did in that moment. Because she felt it. He held out his hand. _"You_ will stand with me. I know that. And you won't have to be alone. You won't have to run."

It was a promise between two children who saw past the problems of the present. _I will protect you, because no one else ever has._ Was it her thought, or his?

Her hand fit in his palm and his fingers closed over hers.

* * *

The moment shattered and Rey and Kylo were once again on opposite sides of the galaxy. On opposite sides of the war.

_Leia,_ she promised, _I'm not going to save the little boy. I'm going to save the man._


End file.
